Saturday, December 12, 2009

Flipper Gets Busy

The Navy has approved a plan to step up anti-terrorism efforts at a Washington base by sending specially trained dolphins and sea lions into surrounding waters.

Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor near Washington’s Puget Sound is stepping up its security by employing aquatic mammals to patrol its restricted waters. The animals’ deployment in 2010 will mark the realization of a program that has been more than three years in the making.

The dolphins and sea lions to defend the base were trained as part of the Navy Marine Mammal Program in San Diego. Working with human handlers, dolphins will search surrounding waters for rogue divers and swimmers. Tom LaPuzza, a spokesman for the program, told Scientific American that upon finding a diver, the dolphin will return to the handler and the handler will assess the severity of the threat.

How long will it take before some "civil liberties" group runs to court charging that the dolphins constitutional rights are under assault?